


Party on Our Own

by Laylah, roachpatrol



Series: Imperial Pop Star [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Flushed Romance, Multi, Pale Romance, Pop Star AU, Psionics, Quadrant Confusion, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 13:38:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah, https://archiveofourown.org/users/roachpatrol/pseuds/roachpatrol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don't want anything to do with anyone who wants anything to do with this shitty record label, right? Except you do honestly need a social circle that's bigger than just your moirail and your kismesis, so you might as well practice interacting like a real live troll while you’re out here. You find yourself attempting a smile that feels dumb as hell, and you try to think of something relatively not-obnoxious to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_So if you're too school for cool_  
 _And you're treated like a fool_  
 _You can choose to let it go_  
 _We can always, we can always party on our own_

"Do you have an appointment?" the receptionist repeats, not even bothering to look up from his screen. He can't possibly be doing work shit. He actually looks like he's paying attention to it.

You take a deep breath and don't think about frying the shit out of the computer. Not for more than two seconds, anyway. "Karkat. Vantas. Is expecting me," you grit out.

The receptionist shakes his head, and not a curl of his perfectly arranged hairdo moves. "I'm afraid he's _not_ expecting you, pupa, or he wouldn't have gone out already."

"That arrogant little—" You cut yourself off at the withering stare the receptionist gives you. The details on his outfit are in one of those colors that you can't distinguish worth a damn, the green-blue range that covers everyone from _you should be polite to this asshole_ through _if this guy kills you it's your fault_. Probably closer to the bottom of that range if the guy is riding a desk talking to kids like you, but it never hurts to be careful.

"Can you find your own way out?" the receptionist asks, smiling with even rows of perfectly pointed teeth. "Or should I call you some assistance?"

You show the guy your fangs in return. "I got it, thanks. It wasn't that complicated."

Your first impulse as you surl away from the reception counter is to troll Aradia, but you stop that thought in its tracks and terminate it with extreme prejudice. You've been _way_ too conscious of things a moirail shouldn’t be conscious of, lately, between the way she's growing up and the way your hormones are reporting for duty—the last thing you want to do is go whining to her when you're feeling bulgeblocked already. And you wouldn't be the first kid in history to go from pale to flush with a wigglerhood sweetheart, but you just can't do it. It would wreck you. You might like her a little flush these nights but you _need_ her pale, and if you fucked that up it would be a disaster.

You get out to the sidewalk—by the side door, because only fancy assholes get to clutter the front steps—and one of the house securippers has just finished tossing some other poor gutterblood out ahead of you. You dodge out of her way as she turns to head back inside, because you're pretty sure she wouldn't think twice about mowing you down.

Then you take a second look at the party's other unwelcome guest. The second look might go on a little longer than is really polite. The guy's almost as tall as you and a _lot_ broader, with infantry-grade shoulders stretching his shirt tight and the kind of wide-set rack you usually only see photochopped onto recruiting posters. He's got the sides of his head shaved and there's a silver tag with his sign on it punched through his ear. He lights up a cigarette and paces away, three confident steps before he realizes he's headed back toward Zodiac's loading dock and turns around.

He stops then and winces like he was hoping nobody saw him fail at cool and now you know his secret. You ought to be annoyed. You don't want anything to do with anyone who wants anything to do with this shitty record label, right? Except you do honestly need a social circle that's bigger than just your moirail and your kismesis, so you might as well practice interacting like a real live troll while you’re out here. You find yourself attempting a smile that feels dumb as hell, and you try to think of something relatively not-obnoxious to say.

"Didn't go so well in there, huh?" you ask.

The guy shakes his head. His sign on his shirt is a lighter color than Aradia's but not as light as yours. Brown, you figure—that makes sense with the build and the horns. "Guess I shouldn't really, uh, have expected anything else," he says, and takes a drag on his cigarette. There's a ring in his nose, too, glittering when he moves.

"Were you looking to get signed?" you ask, sort of confused. You can't think of a single pop act lower than teal—and even the teal one was a novelty—and he must know that if he's interested enough to want to break in.

"I know it sounds dumb," he says. He sneers back at the closed doors, toothy and frustrated. "But I actually thought, I might have a chance, when they heard my demo and liked it."

You piece that together: he sent them a demo without letting them know what he looked like. "So they did like your sound, at least," you say, then bite your lip. That was really inappropriately sympathetic, but, hell, he’s hot and he looks so _resentful_ , and basically fuck the system.

He doesn’t seem to mind, anyway. "Yeah, pretty much, they said, they could sell the music I made, but, they couldn't sell my face." He exhales through his nose, this long jet of smoke that gives him kind of a dragon look for a second there.

"Fuck." You're not surprised they'd make a call like that, but you always got the impression they dressed it up in prettier language. They sure do when the cameras are running, anyway. "They said that to you?"

"They offered, actually, to buy my songs, and, uh," he takes another agitated drag, "just have one of their existing acts, record them."

"Those _bulgesores_ ," you say. "What did you tell them?"

"I told them that I was declining their offer," he says, and smiles sheepishly. "With, possibly, a few more unnecessary expletives."

"Fuck those guys," you say, and, yeah, that’s you laying some truly smooth sympathy right out there. "Totally necessary expletives. Necessary and deserved."

You think he's grinning at your lisp but it's a really cute grin and that makes trying to actually talk to people slightly less embarrassing than usual. "So,” he says, “if you hate those guys, what are you doing here, then?"

"Well. I." You shrug. "There's one guy I hate in particular." It's still weird admitting that to people. "But he just stood me up for a laugh or something, so who fucking needs him. I'll just, I don't know, go home and hack his recuperacoon, set it to a low boil."

The brownblood laughs, and it sounds _warm_. "You can do that?"

You arch an eyebrow over your shades and smirk. "Who wants to know?'

"Oh, right." He stubs out his cigarette under one boot and offers you his hand. "Tavros. Tavros Nitram."

"Sollux Captor," you say, enunciating as carefully as you can, and clasp his big broad paw. It’s callused to the point it feels like a warm brick, holy shit. "Nice to meet you, Tavros Tavros Nitram."

He laughs again, and that makes you feel weirdly proud of yourself. You can hack lines of code better than a lot of adults, but hacking social situations is a huge pain in the ass. "Well, uh, if you can spare the time from your vengeance plans, maybe, we could get dinner somewhere?"

Holy shit. Very suavely, you say, “Only if you let me pay.”

“Only if you let me buy drinks.”

“You got yourself a deal. And a new best friend. What are you in the mood for?”

He grimaces thoughtfully. “I don’t know,” he says, and gives this amazing _aw shucks_ smile-and-kick-at-the-ground. Unreal. “I just came into the city, tonight, specially, so I don’t have much to do with urban settings, in general, or the cuisine, in particular. What would _you_ say is good around here? Can we get pizza?”

“If you want shit food for shitheads,” you say. “If this is your first encounter with the kind of crap we like to call _cuisine_ around here then we definitely need to take a tour of slumring food carts. Try something you _can't_ get freeze-dried in a monthly ration with all the excitement and danger surgically removed, country boy.”

He beams. It takes a few seconds to remember how your feet work.

You lead the way out of the over-developed district where Zodiac's complex is, through the commercial area where midbloods buy shit they don't need and you can't afford, and down into the slumring where you start to be able to breathe a little easier. The first time somebody whistles as the two of you go by, you almost trip over yourself. You've never really been whistle-on-the-street material—you're pretty tall for your caste and you've got doubled horns, but even taking both sets into account they're not that big, and the rest of you, well. Aradia likes to say it’s just that your best attributes aren't the most visible kind.

The second time, though, somebody says, " _Nice_ rack, honeygrub," and the world makes sense again. When you look over at Tavros his eyes have gone really wide.

"Not much of that out in the boonies, huh?" you ask. He shakes his head. You shrug. "If they're shitbloods like us, it doesn’t hurt to whistle back if you like what you’re seeing."

"And if they're, uh, not shitbloods," Tavros says, one eyebrow raised.

You shrug. You're playing this cool. "Depends on how literally you like being fucked over."

He snorts, his lips twisting up in this wry smile like he knows what a crappy deal the world is and why that means you have to laugh. You feel a moment of triumph, like when you figure out why you're stuck on a project—Karkat never _got_ that, always bought the propaganda bullshit, and Aradia acts like the rules just can't touch her. But Tavros's crooked smile makes you think he gets it.

You take him around to all your favorite food carts, because you’ve started taking the odd for-pay coding job here and there and have enough put by for some fun, and you know all the best places from Aradia’s trips in to visit you. But you’re not thinking about Aradia now, just your new friend, and all the cool shit you want to show him. There's the one with the bacon pancakes where you can get beetles in the batter for only a little bit extra. There's the one with chocolate-dipped grubloaf skewers. He buys you a round of drinks each place you stop, and you don't ask where he's getting the cash to splurge like that, because that would be stupidly pale and also not first-date material at all. If this _is_ a date. The hope warms you up faster than the booze, and you find yourself drifting closer into his space, brushing elbows here and there.

After the cart where they smother the carne asada tacos with berry syrup and Tavros makes the most amazing sex face when he takes his first bite you think _oh fuck this had better be a date_. You want to hear him make the noises that go with that face, nngh. You take another drink of your current brew, a sweet dragonfly lager, and try not to stare.

"So, I thought, I was coming to the city for music stuff," he says when the tacos have been obliterated, "but I guess, actually, I was here for the food. And the company." He smiles—you're starting to think he smiles as much in one night as you do in a season, he smiles even more than Aradia—and licks cherry syrup off his fingers. Wow.

"Well, I hope you're still up for more, because we're not done," you say.

Tavros pounds the rest of his lager and licks his lips to chase the last of the foam. "What's next?"

You want to see him lick more things, damn. "Ever had a mad dog?"

"Not yet," he says. "So I guess, you'll have to take care of that?"

"Fuck yes, I will," you agree.

Mad dogs are sold by just one cart, because the proprietor is a crazy fuck who’s good with explosives. You put your money down and get a very small, very spicy sausage. Then you open your mouth and the kid at the counter leans out and sprays it full of whipped cream.

Then you eat the sausage as fast as you can and try not to get foam everywhere.

The whipped cream mostly balances out the spice. Mostly. Tavros does great for two bites and then it catches up to him and his eyes go wide. He attacks the rest of the sausage like it's an emergency and he'd better kill it before it kills him, cramming it into his mouth and bolting the thing almost without chewing. His cheeks go dark and he's sweating a little at the temples.

"Here, the whipped cream helps," you say, wiping a smear off his cheek and holding out your hand. He _could_ just take the cream on his own fingers.

He doesn't, though. He leans forward and licks your fingers clean with slow warm swipes of his tongue.

“You’re trying to stuff me, aren’t you,” he murmurs, low and intimate, and your brain sort of goes _fweeeeeee_ and locks up.

“Uh.”

“With food,” he clarifies, and there’s that smile of his again, his big, pretty lowblood fangs, nearly your own size. It’s a lot more wicked, close up, less _aw shucks_ and more feral heat.

“Yes?” you venture. Your fingertips are resting against the corner of his mouth, of that smile. This close you can see his short, thick eyelashes are kind of saturated with his color—he must be some kind of psychic too. You desperately hope he’s not the kind that can tell how tight your bulge has gone in your sheath. Come on, Captor, get it together. Don’t you dare start dripping in public.

“I like it,” he says, like he’s deciding. “I appreciate how you’ve been, trying to, uh, take care of me. You’re sweet.”

Oh, god, this wasn’t just a date, this was a fucking test. And so far you haven’t failed it. You run your thumb over his lower lip. “Do you want to come over to my place after this?” you blurt out. You can feel your horns crackling a little with anxiety. You are the least suave guy in the history of the planet. You are a sad sack of thumbtacks and failure optimistically disguised as a troll and unleashed on an entirely unsuspecting populace.

“Sure,” he says, eyes flicking up to your horns. “Cool.”

You are a god.

“Cool,” you repeat, and take his hand. When you go to take him towards the last cart of the night he falls in step with you like it's second nature. You're giddy with success, with your own coolness.

“So, you’re a psionic?” he asks after a companionable quiet.

“One of the best,” you say, and flick one of your horns. It’s a dumb trick you’ve perfected: the horn gives off a sharp crackle and spits out a little skein of harmless red-blue power. You drag it off your head between thumb and index digit, hold it in front of your face for a moment, then flick your fingers and it pops. You mostly only do this kind of shit in the mirror while you’re brushing your fangs, but it makes Tavros bark out a surprised, appreciative laugh.

“Can I try?” he wants to know, and wow yes. You stop in your tracks, and he almost steps on your heels.

“Be gentle, big boy,” you tell him, grinning, and he snorts.

“How, uh, do I...?”

You concentrate, draw your power up, together, coherent. “Just flick one— _hn!_ ”

He twists his fingers, then wiggles them, watching the ball lightning cling to his skin. You could do more to show off, you could blast down a few walls, you could slag half the carts around you. But he looks so delighted by just this, full of a weirdly unguarded happiness, you’re breathless with tenderness. You want him to like you _so much_.

When he 'lets go' of the power and you let the energy dissipate, there's this moment of wistfulness on his face that flops your bloodpusher right over. "Let's," you say, and swallow hard. "Let's get a couple of ice planets for the walk home."

"Okay," he says, in this hushed voice like he's trying not to scare the moment off either.

They don't even have your favorite flavors in stock tonight at the ice planet stand but you couldn’t give a shit about _anything_ that isn't Tavros right now so you just pick something at random. You get one with melon liqueur soaking the cake, showing through the coating of powdered sugar in dark spots like tiny edible topography. Tavros struggles to figure out how to eat his while it sways at the end of the string, and you entertain yourself by making some of the powdered sugar orbit your planet in a ring.

"Showoff," he says warmly when he notices.

You glance over at him. "You're impressed, right?" you say. If you make it that obvious then it'll seem like you don't really care. That's a thing that's true.

"Definitely," Tavros says, and everything is great. He clears his throat. "So, uh, how are you supposed to eat these?"

"Carefully," you say. "And with style." You bring yours to your mouth with your psionics, holding it in place so you can take a bite. Tavros snorts in amusement and gives his planet one more try before he just takes hold of the cake in one big hand and bites into it like it’s an apple. Okay. You're both cheating. That's fine, because cheating is delicious.

It's _double_ fine, because he finishes in three big, toothy bites, then fastidiously goes about licking the powdered sugar off his hand. You think you might be developing some kind of fixation on his mouth. You think he might have noticed. No one needs to take that long to clean their claws. Not that you’re complaining. 

“How much can you move, anyway?” he asks. “Just planets?” and you realize you’re still holding your the remains of your cake in neat orbit around its stick.

“Oh, sure planets are easy,” you agree airily. “I throw the occasional meteor for fun. Trunkbeasts on my off days.”

“Get out,” he says, elbowing you, and you elbow him back.

“Maybe I will,” you say, because you’re at your hivestem. You lift up off the ground and his eyes go _wide._ You get to about horn level before he grabs your ankle.

“That’s _awesome,_ " he says eagerly, and you can’t help a proud grin. Hell yeah, it’s awesome. Most lowbloods get some kind of talent. Not that many of them get the kind that gives physics a hard look and two middle fingers.

“So do you want a lift, then?” you ask.

“God yes,” he says, and puts his arms up. And, well. You could carry him without touching him, it’s just, why would you want to?

You take his hands and tug him up, a little bit with your arms but mostly with your powers. When you get him level with you, you lean into him and twine an arm around his waist. He feels so _good_ , broad-shouldered and sturdy in a way that neither Aradia nor Karkat is, a wholly new and different kind of good.

And he's purring, oh fuck. He's purring at the fact that he's in your arms, or flying, or both. That's a great fucking sound. You laugh a little. "You like it, huh?"

"I've always wished I could fly," he confides against your bare throat.

"Hang on, then," you say, and his arms tighten around your waist and you feel giddy. "We'll take the scenic route."

There's nothing scenic about the area around your hivestem. Right now it doesn't matter. You sweep Tavros up and around the building in a wide spiral and then, as he whoops with delight, you blast straight past your blocks and haul ass for the stars. It’s harder, carrying someone, but not by much. You’ve got this shit. The city falls away beneath your feet and his arms go tighter and tighter around you the smaller it gets, till you can see the edges, till it’s the size of a table, then a hand, then a little green-gold bee.

It’s cold up here, fucking cold as shit, but so clear. Every star is like a spear, and you can see just the faintest silver rim of sunlight creeping up the horizon to the east. Tavros is a mess of shivers in your arms, breathless and laughing and rubbing his cheek against your shoulder. You are the king of romance.

"This is amazing," he tells you. "I mean, I'd experienced it, second hand, but it's so much more intense, when I'm really here."

"Second hand?" you ask, and then you get wracked all over with a really hard shiver.

Tavros rubs your back. "We can head back down, where it's warmer, and I'll explain, or, I could show you?"

You get as far as opening your mouth to insist you're fine, and then you're shivering like a half-drowned squeakbeast again. Maybe heading back down to a lower altitude would be a good idea. "Okay, yeah, we can do that." You look down. You've always loved looking down. "You want to try freefall part of the way?"

"Wow," he says, and yeah, you know, that's a huge thing to ask. You'd mock Karkat at this point, needle him until he got over his fear and proved himself better than that. But Tavros doesn't make you feel anything like Karkat does.

"It's fine if you don't," you say. "I won't—I'm not going to get on your case or anything for having too much sense."

He shakes his head and almost beans you with one of those glorious horns. "Go ahead," he says. "You know what you're doing. You won't just let us fall."

Holy shit, wow. You nuzzle his cheek, just trying to hide your stupid smile. "Here we go, then."

You let your psionics go, and there's that one dizzy moment of panic when gravity first notices you again—you cling tighter to Tavros as you start to fall, and he lets out a little whoop that could be terror or delight.

The air whistles past your ears as you pick up speed, and the corners of your eyes sting with reflexive tears. It feels like your breath itself is being ripped away as you approach terminal velocity, and the city expands below you in a huge glittering sprawl. Adrenaline sings in your veins and you feel like an emperor, like a god, untouchable, unstoppable—any normal kid who tried this would wind up smeared to paste on the sidewalk, splattered on impact. But not you.

You let your power kick back in when you're still far enough up that you have time to brake slowly, bringing your speed down from complete freefall until it smooths into a glide. You feel the hitch in Tavros's breath where he's pressed up close against you, and you wheel slowly over the rooftops.

Then, like something out of a Vvallt Disney film, this completely ridiculous swarm of bats comes whirling up from the buildings to circle the pair of you. "What the fuck," you start, tensing up. You've never heard of the city bats going for prey as big as subadult trolls before, though now, looking at some of those wingspans, you’re wondering if it’s because they just don’t leave survivors. It's okay, though. You can probably blast enough of them to make the others go for easier prey. You've got this.

"It's okay," Tavros says, his voice dreamy and soft. "They're friendly."

"They're—" You get a closer look at him, and his eyes are glowing gently, not as bright as yours get but enough that it's obvious he's doing something. "You're a summoner?"

It takes a second before he nods, and then he's slow about it, like he's distracted and it takes a lot of effort to get his body to do things. That hits you like a sack of unreasonably sexy bricks: not only did he trust you enough to let you fly him up practically to the stratosphere, but he's okay with going halfway out of his body on his own psychic trip while he's still totally at your mercy. This is getting seriously intense for a random hookup, this is _first night of the rest of your lives_ intense. This is like _the kind of kid you take to meet your moirail_ intense.

You swoop and wheel with the bats, giddily diving through their formations as they break apart and re-form, turning spirals around you, Tavros laughing against your throat, urging you on. By the time you find your way back to your livingblock’s big window you can hardly work the catch, you’re so hopped up on the thrill of it all. You plow inside and trip over power cords the minute your feet hit carpet, keeling over in a mess of arms and knees and horns, and half a dozen big greasy bats flap inside after you.

“Oh, god, don’t let them at my apiculture servers—” you yelp, trying to get back upright, and Tavros doesn’t let you up. You freeze. The bats flutter back out the window like they want to give you two some time alone. Tavros splays his hands across your back and looks up at you, and you realize you’ve got your legs tangled together at the thigh and your own arms sort of clumsily around his face. You run a hand over his scalp, tentatively feeling at the shorn fuzz of it and the way it softens as it lengthens out, and he purrs again.

“You make me feel so safe,” he says. “You’re a good guy.”

“Okay, thanks,” you say helplessly. You’re dizzy and flushed and have no idea what happens next. You think maybe the ice planets were stronger than usual, and you shouldn’t have had them on top of so many pints; you think you’re drunk. “Are you drunk?”

“On the contrary, your _face_ is what is drunk, in this situation,” he says, laughing again, and paps you.

Oh.

“Uh,” you say, dodging his next pap. “I mean, yeah, yes, I am, I definitely am drunk. Can I kiss you, though, can I ask that?”

He gets you right on the cheek, his next attempt, and his palm is broad and rough and feels so fucking good that you think for one muddled moment _okay wow hnnngh_ , and then before you can be an even worse moirail to Aradia than you already are he pauses, blinking owlishly.

“What, like, flush?” he asks. “This was flush?”

“Well, the thing is, not that you’re not nice and that this wasn’t nice and your hand is also really fucking nice, right there, I do like it, but I’ve got a moirail,” you say, stumbling over your own tongue. “And you are, the thing is, please don’t take this the wrong way, you are _so hot_.” Probably you are making the stupidest hopeful face in all of forever right now, looking down at Tavros and praying he doesn't have a matesprit already.

He gives you this radiant grin. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah, I am, I mean, I’m aware. Go for it, flush is cool too, I just, uh. You know, whatever. Let’s do it.”

"Wow, yes." You lean down, slow and giddy and prickling all over with delight—something's going right for you, for once, going so right and you like him so much—and your lips meet his so gently it almost _could_ be pale, except for the way it makes a shiver thrum right down your spine and your bulge ache.

He slides that big hand around to cradle the nape of your neck and press you closer, his mouth opening under yours and his tongue teasing your lip. You don't mean to whimper, it just happens, and when he just shivers happily under you it starts to sink in that this is going to be _really_ different from the blackrom experience you already have. It's okay to let your guard down. He's not going to be looking for ways to get the upper hand.

Instead he just traces softly at your ribs, letting you explore his mouth. You do your best to impress, working your split tongue tips against his, nipping at his lips, but every time you get too amped up he just strokes your neck, or squeezes your waist, and you feel yourself unwinding. Making out with Karkat is a study in vicious intensity, is an exercise in overkill. Tavros, by contrast, is languid and utterly unaggressive and you find yourself mellowing out to match, relaxing into him. You feel secure, being held like this, you feel grounded and content. It’s amazing to just lie on the floor with him, trading these soft warm kisses back and forth, tracing lines across each other’s skin.

He leaves your mouth in favor of licking his way down your neck, and the rush of heat and wanting that elicits has you grinding down against him for one heady, brainless, delicious moment. He huffs out a shaky laugh and you feel your ears burn—you try to move back a little from him but he’s still got you, and he slides a hand down to cup your butt firmly, keeping you pressed against him. You can feel his bulge pushing up against yours through way too many layers of fabric.

“Oh my god,” you gasp, and can’t help but roll your hips. “Oh my—Tavros, you’re wearing too many fucking clothes, come on, you’re killing me.”

Tavros laughs again, and this is the first time making out has ever been so damn _happy_ , and fuck, you think you could get to like it. "You know what, I think," he says, taking hold of your shirt, “is that you’re _overinvestimented_ ,” and he goes pushing it up and off you while you moan at the atrocious pun. Then you’re bare to the waist and he’s just... looking at you.You're self-conscious for a second, sure you won't measure up to the broad-shouldered strength you can feel in him.

"Wow," he says then. "Wow, that's really nice. You shouldn't, ah, hide something this nice, under shirts that fit like that."

You roll your eyes. "God, not you, too. Aradia already gives me enough shit about that."

"Aradia?" he repeats. There's something weird about his tone.

"My moirail," you explain. He's frowning. "What, what's wrong?"

"Um. Rustblood, really pretty, long hair, horns that sort of...?" He sketches curves in the air, the sweeping first-round-of-a-spiral shapes you know so well.

"Yeah, that's her. ...Wait, how do you know AA?" you ask. Something isn't lining up here. Or it _is_ lining up when it shouldn't.

Tavros ducks his head in this awkwardly adorable embarrassed gesture. "She's, uh, in my FLARP league," he says.

"Oh _god_ ," you moan, as all the pieces fall together and make terrible amounts of sense. "You're the one! You're the cute brownblood that she has a crush on! I am the _worst moirail_ , Tavros, it is me. I should have known, fuck, the universe never gives me anything this nice unless it's trying to fuck with me."

"Okay, I think, I'm going to take that as a compliment, the part about being this nice, but also, maybe, you should not be so hard on yourself," Tavros says gently, his hand on your bare upper back and that still feels _good_. "You didn't know, that it was me, and I didn't know, that she actually liked me back, that way, so, I don't think, you did anything bad?"

You slump against him. This is a tragedy. "I'm still the worst," you say. "The. _Worst_. I can't help it, that's just what I do. But you're so hot. And _she's_ so hot. Oh my god, listen to me, she's _pale_ for me, I’m awful. I’m fucking reprehensible."

Tavros chews on his lip nervously. "Well, she seems pretty reasonable, to me, so, if you feel like you need to, um, you could explain? And tell her you're sorry?"

"You're right," you say resolutely. Your bulge is going to hate you for this, and you'll kind of deserve it. "I should do that. I should do that right now. Let's do that. Let's call her up and I'll tell her I'm sorry for being the worst and you two can have my blessing to go and be hot as a matched set."

"Right now?" Tavros asks. "Are you sure, in your particularly intoxicated situation, you are ready to explain things?" But you're already floating your husktop over so you can call her.

“Look, you’re drunk too,” you reassure him. “So together we’re like, I don’t know, probably something like a functional troll who can get shit done and dusted. We’re gonna dust this shit like it hasn’t been cleaned in _sweeps_.”

“Uh,” he says, biting his lower lip, and you have to hang on to your husktop really hard to keep from kissing him again.

You try to connect and then worry that she's not going to be around—what time is it? did she have a game tonight? is she going to be out at another ruin site?—but before you can work yourself into a fit of despair over not being able to properly apologize, you get the connection chime from her end.

"Hey, Sollux!" Aradia says cheerfully as the picture starts to resolve. "What's tonight's emergency?"

"AA, you're the prettiest," you start, and you're already doing it wrong. "You're the prettiest and the most patient and I'm absolutely the most terrible, the worst, you don't even know."

"I think, maybe, you are overstating the case," Tavros contributes.

"Oh! Hey, Tavros," Aradia says, waving into the camera. He waves back. Neither of them is taking this situation seriously enough. "I didn't know you guys knew each other!"

"We _didn't_ ," you say helplessly. "We didn't and now we do and I kissed him and I think he's great but _you're_ great and I'm horrible and I'm fucking everything up forever."

"Really, this would probably be better, to talk about, when you're less drunk?" Tavros says. “And not as, um, self-hatey.”

"Oh, honeybee," Aradia says. Tavros makes a little squeaking noise at that and you blush hot. "You're a mess, aren't you? This is why you should be careful with depressants."

"I know," you wail. "That’s why I'm the worst, AA, I do everything wrong!"

Aradia sighs. "Tavros, can you do me a really big favor?" You're watching her face on the screen but you see the reflection of him nodding. "Can you give Sollux a hug for me?"

"Um," Tavros says.

"I can trust you, right?" she adds. "And you're there right now, and I'm not. So give him a hug for me. He needs one."

"You should be mad," you try to explain, before Tavros can get his big warm comforting arms around you. "You should be mad at me, AA, because I keep thinking about you in ways that really aren't pale at all, and," you have to struggle to keep hold of your train of thought, because Tavros does feel really solid and nice against your back, "and, and, when I went to go find someone else I wound up making out with _your_ flush crush, I’m so _sorry_ —."

"Ssshh," Tavros says, and paps your cheek. "Shoosh, be calm."

Your mouth falls open and you feel your argument melting, too drunk and too strung out on your own ridiculous brain's excess to keep your composure. You whimper.

"Yeah, just like that," Aradia says. "Just like that, Tavros, you got him."

"Oh," Tavros says shakily. You trill reflexively and lean into his hand, waiting to feel embarrassed while the feeling just doesn't come. Instead you just want more of everything. "Oh," he says again. "You, uh, you like this?"

"Well. I'm pretty sure I'd like it more if I were there to play along," Aradia grins. "But yeah, you put on a pretty good show."

"Oh my god," Tavros whispers. You'd try to say something reassuring but he's still got you, one arm snug around your waist and the other hand stroking your cheek, and you just... You need this all the time, you're such a mess, and it feels so good.

“Soooooo,” Aradia says. “Can I come over or what?”

“ _Yes,_ ” you and Tavros both blurt out, and then Aradia and Tavros start laughing and you want to dissolve through the floor slats. You’re a big sloppy mess and you want your damn moirail to come and kiss you. Okay, then. Okay.

"Awesome," she says. "It's pretty late—I'm not sure I can make it there tonight before sunrise. But I'll head out that way first thing in the evening."

"Wow," Tavros says. He's right.

"So in the meantime, you guys need to take care of each other, okay? Make sure you drink some water before you crash, and get a good day's sleep." Her smile turns into an outright _leer_. "You're going to need it."

You stare at the screen for a good thirty seconds after she closes the connection, just trying to get your head around this. You're curled up right now with a hot guy you just met, who's done both flushed and pale things with you tonight, and the plan is to do _more_ of those things once Aradia can get here to join you. "This isn't real life," you say as Tavros helps you up. "This is a porn."

Tavros laughs. "Oh good," he says, steering you into the nutrition block for water. "I was afraid, it was just me, having that suspicion."

Your phone buzzes with an incoming message as you're following Tavros into your recuperacoon. You ignore it. You ignore it again. You'd probably _keep_ ignoring it, as many times as it took, except that Tavros frowns in this worried sort of way and says, "Uh, your shellphone?"

"Yeah," you say, "I guess I should get that." There's a chance it could be Aradia, you figure. You levitate your phone over and flip it on. You have almost four full screens of capslock text waiting for you, starting with a _where the fuck were you_ theme—he thinks you were the one who stood him up? asshole—and moving on to some jeering about your presumed lack of a life before turning to _just tell me you're okay_ sort of stuff. According to the timestamps, the first messages probably came in right around the time you were introducing Tavros to the wonders of cherry-glazed carne asada. Whoops.

"It's my kismesis," you tell Tavros. "He's pale for me too."

Tavros laughs. "Everybody wants to pap that."

"You know it," you say, and you actually feel like it might be true, like you might be desirable after all and not just an embarrassment to everyone who’s ever had to breathe your air. You concentrate on the keypad long enough to write you're not my lu2u2, kk, 2top wiith the mother cluckbea2t iimpre22iion. ii diidn't feel liike waiitiing around for you all niight, 2o ii found a date.

WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY KISMESIS? SOLLUX "MY ONLY FRIEND IS MY COMPUTER" CAPTOR DOES NOT GO ON DATES.

You switch to cam mode. "Smile for the camera a second," you say to Tavros, and snap some shots. You have to lean back some to get his whole rack in the frame, and after just a few takes he’s grinning sincerely and doing show-offy flexing poses with his arms. You send the best one off and then he catches you up again, nuzzling ticklishly at your neck. You’re not even sure if _he_ knows what color this is.

don't waiit up, ii'll troll you niight after twomorrow.

You shut off your phone before Karkat can reply, and send it floating back to its regular spot on your desk.

The 'cupe is a tight fit for the two of you, and his horns don't fit in it right, but it's still good. You drape yourself over him like an inebriated psionic blanket, petting his broad chest lazily, and purr yourself right to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

You wake up with a crick in your neck and no idea where you are. The recuperacoon doesn't feel familiar, the room smells wrong, and there's a heavy weight on your chest, something in the slime with you. Some _one_ in the slime with you.

You crack an eye open enough to look down and catch a glimpse of doubled sets of horns. You wake up a little more. Right. Sollux. The arrestingly fierce-looking psionic you met last night, who turned out to be so intensely sweet that you couldn't resist following him home. Who turned out to already have a diamond, and that diamond was....

"Hey," you say, not too loud, shrugging a little to make Sollux move. "Um. How long does it take, to get from Aradia's place, to here?"

“About an hour, if you go really fast,” Aradia says from behind you, and you startle so badly you dunk Sollux under the slime.

He comes up sputtering. "Holy shit, AA, it's barely past sunset!" is the first coherent thing he says. He clambers out of the recuperacoon, using you as a stepping stone, and reaches out for her with both hands. "Are you okay? Fuck, you're burned."

If you squint you can just see the raw blush of pink across her cheeks, and that must feel awful. Then Sollux starts smoothing sopor across her burns and her eyelids flutter closed. The back of your neck prickles, all shivery, as you watch them, the way he spreads the slime against her skin so tenderly and the trusting softness to her smile. You've watched your share of pale videos—okay, maybe a little more than your share—but you'd swear this is _different_ somehow. Maybe it's because you know their feelings are real, so you believe every tiny gesture. Maybe it's because they're rust and yellow. In videos, the partner getting papped is usually teal or cerulean, sometimes aquamarine. It's never two lowbloods together. Two trolls like you.

Aradia takes hold of Sollux's wrists and pulls his hands away from her face. Not far, just enough for her to kiss his gooey palms. "Go get cleaned up, silly," she says.

"Tavros is all slimy too," Sollux points out, but he kisses Aradia's forehead and turns toward the ablution block anyway.

She swats his glutes. "Tavros can wash up after you. There's no way your trap has enough room for both of you at once."

His exit leaves you sitting up alone in his recuperacoon with Aradia watching you. "Um, hi," you say, because she's grinning at you and you were just cuddled up with her moirail and also you're wearing considerably less than your FLARP costume right now.

"Hey, cutie," she says. "How's your head?"

"Not the worst, that I can remember, but definitely not the best, either," you say. You bite your lip. "I'm sorry, about—"

She puts her fingers to your lips and you shut up. "Let's not be sorry," she says. "Let's be excited about what a _great_ evening we're about to have."

You can feel your pulse in your nook. It takes everything you’ve got not to sink down to your eartips in the slime.

“Okay,” you say faintly.

"Awesome," Aradia says. She hefts a bag she brought in with her and starts going through it. "Here. Energy Bomb grubshakes, the double-caffeinated kind, and a bottle of Trollynol for the headache."

"Wow." You take the can she hands you. "You came... prepared.”

“A true adventurer does,” she agrees.

"We're, uh, really headed for an adventure, tonight, aren't we," you say. Your hands are almost steady when you accept a few Trollynol from the bottle.

"I sure hope so!"

She has such a great smile.

You wash down the pills and chug about half your breakfast, while you're at it. Aradia leans on the side of the recuperacoon to keep you company. As you're drinking the last of your grubshake, she reaches over. "This okay?" she asks, and her fingers thread into the crest of your hair.

"Really, really okay," you say, and she keeps doing it, pushing your hair one way and then another, tugging gently, scratching at your scalp until you're a gooey, purring mess and practically oozing out of the recuperacoon. You don’t mean to melt down so fast, she’s just got such clever, authoritative fingers, and you can hardly even think to feel self-conscious through the rising warmth. Is this what she does to Sollux?

“That’s so nice,” you mumble, and she laughs and brings her fingers together into a fist.

“You’re so nice,” she says, tugging that fistful of your hair, and you can’t help gasping at the hot sting. Then she pulls your head forward and kisses you with the kind of heat you can feel right down to your toes, and oh, that’s amazing. You drop the empty can and throw an arm around her slim, tense shoulders to draw her close. She’s so small and so warm, and you can feel the subtle static whisper of psionics coursing along her soft skin wherever she touches you. You want her to touch you everywhere.

Someone whistles, long and kind of mocking, and you rear back, startled. For one white-hot moment you’re ready to shove a lance through whoever would dare interrupt you, but then you blink and there’s Sollux in a towel, leaning against the ablution chamber’s doorway and wearing this big heartbreaking mess of feelings all over his face. Jealousy, sure, but hungry appreciation, and uncertainty... you don’t know what you’re doing here. You don’t know what you’re doing with him, kissing his moirail. Wanting to kiss him too. You feel dirty and ashamed, and shrink back from Aradia bit by bit.

Aradia kisses your wrist.

“Shh,” she says. “Go get a shower, Tavros. Someone needs a good hard feelings jam.”

You can hear Sollux’s gulp from across the room. When you haul yourself out of the recuperacoon and head past him into the ablution chamber you see him look at your mouth just for a second, and you're entirely not sure how to read that, what he wants. He slips past you skittishly. "I left an extra towel out," he says.

“Thanks,” you say, and don’t kiss him.

His ablution trap’s set nice and hot, even if you have to hunt around for the soap before you find a jar of cleansing syrup flung across the bathroom. Even this detail is oddly charming. Sollux seems just like the kind of guy who throws things when he’s frustrated, he’s kind of a compelling disaster of a guy. You lather down fast and careful, trying not to think of Sollux standing naked in this very trap, frustrated, throwing his soap, breathing hard. Thinking about you. You can feel your pulse pounding between your legs, your nook warm and slick and your bulge starting to consider emerging, and you really, really, really conscientiously avoid doing anything more than just rinsing that particular area of your anatomy off. You flip the water just a bit cooler, and think soothing thoughts.

When you emerge from the bathroom in your towel, Aradia has Sollux sprawled like a broken action figure across the floor, his head pillowed in her lap. His eyes are glazed over with bliss, and hers are completely wicked. She’s got both hands around all of his horns, and everywhere the two of them touch is generating weird silvery pink and blue arcs of light. One of his long, slim, bare legs kicks a little, whenever she generates a particularly bright connection of power.

Your bulge decides that going outside is a really, really great idea. You grit your teeth and cinch your towel around your body a lot more tightly. This is so _pale_ , what is wrong with you? Other than how your preference for ‘rails with pails videos is coming back to bite you on the globes. Aradia’s just looking at you like she _knows_ , stroking Sollux in long smooth motions that have him sighing, squirming up against her. Does he even know what a display they’re making?

“He’s so pretty, isn’t he?” Aradia says, low and throaty. “Tavros? Don’t you think?”

“AA,” Sollux gasps. “God—god, you—hhhn, you. Fuck.” He turns his face into her hand, kisses her palm. Your core temperature feels roughly analogous to the sun. You nod helplessly.

"You want to come down here and help me out?" Aradia asks.

Your voice box doesn't work at all right now. You open your mouth and nothing comes out, you're just standing there stunned. She beckons, and you nod again, and you hold on tight to your towel as you sink down onto the floor on Sollux's other side.

“What do I do?” you ask. You can’t remember ever being so scared of fucking up anything, ever, before.

“Let’s ask Sollux,” she grins, and pats his cheek. “Hey, honeybee. What do you want him to do to you? Be honest.”

“ _Everything,_ ” Sollux says fervently, then blinks a few times, wrinkles his nose, and goes dark gold all over his face. “I mean. I mean, uh.”

"That sounds good," you say—god, you're practically squeaking—and you reach out to him carefully. "I'm, uh, willing to make a serious attempt there." You cup the side of his face, remembering how easy it felt last morning, when you were too drunk to be self-conscious, when you didn't know he already had an amazing moirail you'd have to measure up to, when all you were thinking about was how sweet it was to coax out his smile. Focusing on that makes it a little easier. You stroke the arch of his cheekbone with your thumb and he leans into your hand.

“Tell me if anything, uh, isn’t... okay,” you force out, addressing him or Aradia or the world in general, and then just keep going. His jaw’s a little rough with stubble and his pulse is lightning fast under the delicate skin of his throat. When you lean in and press a kiss there he whimpers and cups his soft, long-fingered hands around the back of your head. You fight down a shiver, and do your best to keep yourself from digging in your teeth. You splay a hand out over his chest and stroke the smooth skin there, and how prominent the bones are under it. He’s really thin, he’s fragile. He must do nearly everything with his psionics, he can fly with them. He doesn’t need muscle. But it makes him so vulnerable, inside his defenses.

You’re increasingly aware that this can’t possibly be just a nice day spent with a handsome stranger. There’s no way you could settle for that. You stroke the long taut stretch of his narrow stomach and drink in the way he keens, the way his hips arch off the floor, even this far gone in the grip of pale stupor. There’s still something inextricably flush about all of this, and he’d said he had those kinds of feelings for Aradia, too. What the hell are the three of you doing with each other?

Your hand hesitates on the edge of his towel, and you find yourself thumbing the sharp ridge of his hipbone. You want, very badly, but you don’t even know what you want. You want this to be okay. You wincingly glance up at Aradia, ready for her frown, but she’s still got that same delighted smile on her red lips. Sollux is panting, between the two of you, squirming restlessly, as lost as you are.

Aradia takes one hand off Sollux and reaches over to stroke your face instead. "You can relax," she says, and you can feel her power still humming alive against your skin, like a purr would be if purrs were made of pure energy. "You're still okay with this?"

You nod.

"Okay," she says. "How about this?" Then she leans over her moirail to kiss your mouth. Her hand is still on your cheek and she's gentle with you, her tongue slipping into your mouth at the same time that she keeps stroking your face. This is the kinkiest thing you have ever even _imagined_ doing, and it's really happening to you.

“Shiiiiiiit,” Sollux moans, more hiss than word. His lisp is crushingly adorable. You can feel one of his hands fumble tight around your wrist and you recognize the gesture, you can feel him struggling to convey _don’t forget me, don’t make me go_ because that’s how you just felt, watching him and Aradia. You’re dizzy with pity for him and Aradia’s running her tongue alongside yours, claiming you, and you just want her to take you and keep you and have you, like this, like however, forever. She finds the tag in your ear and when you keen at her touch, at how sensitive your flesh is around the ring, she plays with it, tugging and teasing, until you don’t have any words, until the sweet hot sting of it has just blown you to bits. She’s so amazingly _confident,_ not the careful artificial way you’ve learned to be, with your haircut and your piercings and your practicing tough-guy smiles in the mirror, but genuinely. She really thinks this is alright.

She pulls back, breathing hard, and you just want to lunge forward and touch her all over, you want to roll over and whine, you want to beg for her bulge. Instead you take a deep breath and try to match her grin.

“Can we do that to him?” you ask.

Sollux chirps. "If you don't my heart will break forever and I will never get over it," he says. Aradia smiles down at him fondly.

"Well, uh. In that case," you say, and lean down to kiss him next. Aradia goes “Woo!” really brightly, and you find yourself giggling into Sollux’s mouth, almost tickling yourself with his strange, unbearably sexy split tongue tips. He’s snickering, too, a thick wet sound, and he ends up mouthing sloppily at your nose half the time.

“Do you mind, AA,” he finally says, trying to be aggrieved, and you take the opportunity to suck on his earlobe. He makes a beautiful series of gasps at that, and sinks his claws into your shoulders.

“Don’t mind at all,” she says. You feel the sudden shock of her horns clicking against yours and shiver, backing off, and then get treated to the sight of her dipping down to claim her own moirail’s mouth in a kiss that goes on way, way too long to be pale.

Sollux is still for a long moment, as if spellbound. Then he shudders and lets out a long, warbling, almost teary keen, and scrabbles at her arms.

“AA, Aradia, please,” he babbles. “Oh, you don’t, you don’t have to, please, it’s okay, we don’t have to—”

“I want to,” she says, kissing him over and over, “Sollux, you’re so pretty, you grew up so pretty—” and he’s starting to roll his hips against the air, his toes clenching, his towel sliding off his narrow hips. You can see the root of his bulge, flushed a really compelling dark yellow, and the way the rest of his length has caught up a fold of towel. Your own bulge is squirming against its own section of towel, you can sympathise with how totally uncomfortable that situation is.

He still pulls away one more time to beg, "Please, though, I just—I can't, I don't want to, I'll hate myself forever if I lose you pale, I'll die, tell me we'll still be—"

"I promise," she says intensely, and you're going to die of this tenderness. "I promise. Still pale no matter what."

"Okay," he says, this soft breath of relief. "Okay. Good. Then." He looks from her to you and back again, with this wonderful overwhelmed smile. "Then this is the best thing. Both of you. Like this. The best thing."

You’re so glad someone else said it, so you don’t have to. You just nod, trying to take it all in, Aradia’s warm smile, Sollux’s big fangy grin, the smooth narrow expanse of his chest, his stomach, his bulge, the way Aradia’s looking at it too.

Be brave. You reach out and pull the towel off him entirely. He huffs a startled breath and throws his head back, and when you touch him he pushes up eagerly into your grasp.

“Oh, yeah,” he hisses, “Yeah, yeah, just like that, Tavros, please, like that.”

You slide your hand up along his length, startled and absurdly pleased to see he’s split here, too: he’s got two delicate bulge tips that twist around each other. It’s a mutation, it shouldn’t be so cute, but it’s charming, somehow. It suits him. When you push your fingertip into the fork it pinches at you and he jerks and shakes like you’re overwhelming him. He keens low and hungry and Aradia bends down again and drinks him in. She kisses him like she can’t get enough, like she’s been waiting a very long time to kiss him like this. You wonder how long they’ve known each other, how long they’ve had to be in love with each other. It doesn’t make you feel left out, like you felt earlier. You’ve got a fistful of his bulge and the taste of her lipstick, you just feel privileged. Special, to be here, witnessing this. 

“‘Radia, AA, can I,” he finally gasps, “would you let me—” and fumbles at the hem of her skirt. You swallow hard, fixating on those long fingers, that slice of skin he exposes on her. She catches your presumably ridiculous gape, and laughs. She’s burnt rosy pink all over her face and down her neck and you think she’s so lovely it kind of hurts. Aradia is unapologetically blunt-featured and sun-bleached, wound tightly with muscle and old scars, and she’s utterly wild. Like the really old kind of fairies, the bright and pure ones you didn’t fuck with or call on for favors. She’s beautiful. You want to see her breasts really badly.

She unzips and then wiggles her way out of her skirt without grace or hesitation, pushing it down so Sollux can catch it and toss it out of the way. She throws her t-shirt off with just as little fanfare, and she's every bit as lovely as you thought she'd be: full breasts and broad hips, her thighs solid with power. Her bra is sturdy black cotton with just a couple of tiny red bows on it, and when she whips that off too you think all three of you sigh in delight. She rubs at her breasts like it's a relief to have them free.

Sollux grins. "You want some help with that? I could—" and then she shifts, spreading her legs like she's going to pull him up close between them, and he sputters. " _That's_ where those went?"

 _Those_ must be referring to the briefs she's wearing, low and snug across her hips, decorated with bees and silicomb hexagons. They look ridiculously cute on her, and then you think about the fact that she's wearing her moirail's underwear, and the fact that there's a distinct wet spot on the front of them, and this is a porn again. The best porn, because it's happening to you.

"Well, you can have them back if you come get them," she says with a wink. Sollux whimpers, and your bulge practically ties itself in a knot.

"Anything you want, AA," Sollux says when he gets his composure back. He rolls onto his hands and knees and leans down, catching the waistband in his teeth. From the faint crackling sparks you think he's cheating to get them to slide down smoothly, but you can't blame him. That's super cool.

Her bulge is about halfway unsheathed, and already that's enough for you to see that she's built thicker, like you, instead of lean like Sollux is. You wonder what it would feel like in you—what _either_ of them would feel like in you—and you hope you'll get to find out. Sollux settles between her thighs again and licks her, dragging his tongue up the length of her bulge and mouthing delicately at the tip. Aradia shivers, making a sweet, soft moan that makes your nook pulse.

When you shift a little to the side you can see Sollux's nook, with the way his legs are spread. He's flushed golden and glistening wet, and there's something so intimate and vulnerable about the fact that he lets you see him like this—you're still a mess of blurry overlapping feelings, wanting to protect him and have him both at once.

Aradia raises an eyebrow at you and you remember you could be doing more, you could be part of this. You shuffle behind Sollux and run your hand slowly up the back of his thigh. "This okay?" you ask, hesitating just before you reach his nook. You know he could stop you if you did something he didn't like—he could throw you across the room without getting up—but he shouldn't have to. You don't want him to feel threatened even for a second.

He pulls up off Aradia's bulge long enough to say, impatiently, "Fuck’re you waiting for, get _in_ me already," before he takes her in his mouth again.

Your bloodpusher is going about a thousand miles an hour. You're glad you waited for someone who made it feel important but you also really, really wish you knew what you were doing right now. You press up close behind him, letting your bulge slip between his thighs. It twines through his slick warm folds reflexively, and that softness already leaves you breathless. It's so different from the rough texture of your own hand. Then you find the right spot, the right angle, and start to work your way into him, and it's _amazing_.

Sollux groans as you press into him, low and muffled and needy, and that makes Aradia shudder and clutch at his horns. You can barely think about anything beyond how good this feels, the tight soft slickness of his nook pulsing around your bulge. You scatter hungry kisses across his back, drag your teeth gently over the lovely, fragile knobs of his spine. Sollux whimpers and squirms between the two of you, kneading at Aradia’s thighs, and then threads a hand clumsily back between his legs, clutching at his own bulge. That won’t do, you think dimly. When you catch his wrist and draw his hand away he makes the most amazing desperate keen, almost crying, and Aradia gasps and shudders, tipping back onto her elbows and panting, “Sollux, more—”

You close your fist around Sollux’s bulge and he growls, nearly slamming his ass back up against your hips. You can see his claws dragging red lines into Aradia’s legs as he clutches at her, as he goes taut and intense. You’re kind of distantly worried about your calluses, that his own hand might have been better for him, his soft palms, but then again isn’t it supposed to feel better if it’s someone else doing the touching? And you want to touch him, too, so badly, you’re so ferociously glad to have him pressed so close against you, have an arm wrapped tight around his narrow stomach and your face pressed to his spine. His bulge curls tight around your fingers and you enjoy the weird, funny feel of his bulge tips. When you stroke the ridges that lead up to where his bulge splits he shudders like a livewire, and you can feel your hair prickle with static.

At some point you realize the whole room is vibrating just slightly, just enough to be unnerving. Aradia's back is arched into a tight curve and the shaking of the room is like an echo of the shaking in her thighs as her breath comes short and her moans go sweet and high and broken—and she cries out, sharp, as this shockwave rolls through you and nearly bowls you over. Something in the nutrition block crashes to the floor, and you can hear high, startling creaks and pops as glass and plastic crack all around the three of you. You’re not sure if Sollux is laughing or growling, with his throat as stuffed as it must be, but he nuzzles up between her legs and doesn’t let go until everything stops rattling and the only sounds are your gasping breaths and the low scratchy noises of game grubs scrabbling for cover.

Aradia collapses in a giddy heap, laughing breathlessly, and Sollux pulls up off her at last. "Felt the planet move, just now—wwnngh, _more_." That last bit is for you, you think, and you haul him backward so he's sitting in your lap instead of splayed on all fours. Aradia stares at you both with this amazing glazed, sated look. Her legs are still spread and her fluids are smeared on her thighs, pooling under her, rich deep red. You've never seen anything so shamelessly hot.

The same color’s still dripping from Sollux’s mouth, staining all down his lean throat. You catch at his chin and pull his head around to lick at it and Aradia goes “Woo,” again, this time low and intense and blisteringly hot. You grin at her over her moirail’s shoulder.

She grins back, and then that little hint of mischief creeps into the expression again. She doesn't move but you feel a gentle touch down your back, soft enough to make you shiver. "Oh," you say, "that—"

"Do that again," Sollux interrupts, and his claws are digging for purchase on your thighs now. "Fuck, you're so big, that's amazing, you’re perfect."

You try to do that again, whatever that was, when all you really know is that your thinkpan is just drowning under the onslaught of _how is this so great_. Aradia's ghost touch moves lower, drifting over your glutes, and then _oh god_ stroking the lips of your nook. You buck against that touch, your nook clenching against itself frantically. You can't get any more than that gentle tease from her but you're driving up hard into Sollux and he's moaning on every ragged breath and you want to hold out until he's satisfied but it just feels too good, too much, too right, and you squeeze your eyes shut as everything in your pan explodes in golden light and everything between your legs just _melts_.

"Fuck, oh fuck," Sollux gasps. "So much, fuck, I can feel it, so full of you right now I—oh—" and the air sparks and crackles around him and his bulge convulses around your fingers and suddenly everything is even slicker and messier, which honestly you wouldn't have thought was possible. He lets his head fall back against your shoulder, panting for breath, and the air has that weird electrical prickliness that makes you think of storms.

You're still reeling when Sollux eases his way off your bulge, and you keep one arm around him because you can't bring yourself to let go. You feel incredible, dizzy and warm and so full of trust, so full of gratitude. Aradia crawls over to the two of you and pushes, gentle but implacable, until you're sprawled on the floor on the probably-ruined-forever towels. Then she snuggles up to you on the side Sollux isn't already pressed against. They both purr, his a little lower, hers a little more resonant.

"That was so great," you tell them, as they link hands over your stomach. "I mean, wow, nobody gets a first time like that. You've set the bar, pretty exceptionally high, I think."

"Oh my god," Sollux says through his purr, nuzzling your shoulder. "You'd never? Not even pitch?"

"Mmn. Wanted to wait, until it felt right."

"That's so sweet." Aradia cuddles up closer, leaving little lipsticky kisses on your skin wherever she can reach. "Makes it feel even more special that you would agree to this."

“Are you kidding?” you laugh. “Fuck, I mean, I... anyone’d be lucky, to have the _chance_ at, uh,” you wave your hand, clumsily. “This. The two of you. You’re amazing.”

"I'm with AA," Sollux says, and well, of course he is. "You’re ridiculously sweet." He nips at your ear tag, gently enough that it just feels like an affectionate thing, not a teasing one. “All my teeth are going to fall out.”

“That’d be tragic,” you smile. “We’d have to spoon-feed you.”

"Or chew up food and spit it into your mouth," Aradia says cheerfully, and Sollux makes exaggerated gagging noises.

“I’ll just have to be, more ferocious, and all around worse tempered, I guess,” you conclude, and roll over just enough to close your fangs around his throat. You growl and shake your head a little while he sputters and slaps at you and you know you’re being ridiculous, but you’re giddy with liking them and it’s making Aradia laugh, so who cares? You don’t care. You don’t care about anything. You grab his narrow ass and give it a squeeze, giggling when that makes him squawk.

Sollux finally shoves you off him, sputtering little lispy curses, and presses you back flat to the floor and leans hard on your chest to keep you down. He’s flushed a deep yellow and still has red smears all over, you can taste it in your mouth. Everything’s wonderful.

"Ooh, are we cuddling him into submission now?" Aradia reaches up to rub the cropped-short fuzz on the side of your head, circling around the horn base, and you make a token attempt at putting up a fight but mostly you just want to butt into her hand and purr.

Then she tosses her head in this kind of extravagant way and captures your horn in the curve of hers. You twist instinctively, rubbing them together, and the tiny ridges catching and sliding against each other make sparks of _weird_ jolt through you.

Sollux whimpers. “That’s too hot, you guys, fuck, I’m not equipped to deal with this.”

“Yeah,” Aradia breathes, “Yeah, Tavros, that’s good, you like that?” pushing at you, and you feel that prickly-cool touch of her psionics wash through you again, resonating along your horns. Your set’s big enough that it’s not very sensitive and you’ve never really bothered playing with it much before, like you hear some trolls do, but like this it feels like every nerve you’ve got is on fire. You push back and she makes a beautiful low noise, an eager snarl, and her small firm hands settle on your chest. Your bulge is starting to prickle and curl against itself again and you know your nook’s dripping, it hasn’t really stopped, it’s heavy and aching inside you and you just want her to overpower you, lay you out and take care of you.

Then Sollux’s arms go around you, too, and you kind of lose it. He pulls your shoulders up flush against his chest and licks at one of your horntips, and you spread your legs and just keen, helplessly overwhelmed.

“Oh, fuck,” Aradia says thickly. She disengages from your horns so she can look you in the eyes. “Tavros.”

“Come on,” you beg. “Come on, please, I want you.”

“Do it,” Sollux adds in. “I got him, AA, come on, show him what you’ve got.” Then, to you, quietly, “You want this, right, this is okay, you wanna stay with us, right, do this more? We don’t want to force you, hurt you, we’d never—”

“Yeah, please, yeah, you're wonderful, just have me,” you whine. All this beautiful talk has you so fucking hot, their warmly possessive hands and how much they like you.

Aradia slides between your legs, intense and focused, and pulls your hips up. You can feel the cold burn of her psionics as she handles you, guides your nook up to her bulge. You set your heels to the floor and arch into her, moaning at the stretch. She’s blazing warm, twining into you thick and slick and muscular, lighting up nerves you didn't even know you had.

Then Sollux starts _petting_ you, his fingers tracing gentle and so pale over your face, your throat, following the rims of your ears. You don't even know what to do with yourself, between his touch making you liquid and relaxed and her bulge making you hot and hungry. You tremble between them, and you barely recognize the sounds coming out of your mouth.

“I got you, bro, relax,” Sollux hums, rubbing his cheek against the back of your mohawk, licking the base of one of your horns. “Just let go, I have you.”

You're too woozy and uncoordinated from the petting to move much, but you don't need to. They've got you. Aradia's bulge flexes and twines inside you, this liquid movement that's nothing like what you could manage with your fingers, and you purr like a motorboat. You feel like you're so grounded in your body, and yet you're floating at the same time. "What _is_ this?" you ask. You haven't been able to make it settle in your head. "It's not quite red, and it's not all pale, and...."

"It's what feels good," Aradia says, looking you right in the eyes. "It's taking care of each other. Sometimes you can't corral that into a quadrant, that's all." The weight of those words thrums through you, straight to your bones, and you surrender to it, letting the two of them care for you and make everything wonderful.

Sollux strokes your face and you kiss his fingers, lick the soft hollow of his palm. His breath catches in a stifled laugh that you feel in the movement of his chest under you. You’re all hung up on the fact that you can make this fierce prickly sweet kid laugh, and how great that is.

"Honeybee, I wanna have you inside me," Aradia says, her voice dreamy and thick with heat. "Come here and give me your bulge?"

"Oh my god, AA," Sollux whispers. He looks down at you, clearly torn.

You smile up at him. "Go on. That's beautiful. I feel great."

He kisses your forehead. "You _are_ great, you big dork," he says. He eases you down, so you wind up on your back with Aradia above you. You can't see him get into position but you can watch her face when he presses into her, you can _see_ how deeply she trusts him. It's so sweet it makes your heart ache. This is what they're inviting you to be part of, what they want you to stay for more of—not just the sex but this feeling of trust and safety and comfort, too. You never want it to end.

Without Sollux soothing you halfway to delirium it starts to get a lot more intense, having Aradia's bulge in you. You can focus more on each twist and pulse, the way your nerves light up with every movement. It feels so good, being filled like this, deeper and more completely than you ever could by yourself. You trill at her, full-throated and needy, and both of them answer you.

You almost jump out of your skin when a soft hand curls around your bulge—you don’t remember closing your eyes, sprawling back like a dropped toy, but you gasp and your hips jerk up without the slightest conscious control. Aradia moans, trills, lashes into you harder, and then you can’t _stop_ moving, wiggling helplessly between the silk-skinned touch of Sollux’s gentle fingers on your bulge and the overwhelming mass of Aradia in your nook.

“Too much,” you whine, “I can’t, I, Sollux, fuck, I can’t deal,” and Sollux recoils. You howl at the loss. “No, more! More, more, gimme—”

“I think he, hah, he likes it, sweetie,” Aradia murmurs, and she’s so beautifully out of breath.

"Keep, nnh, keep talking," Sollux pants as he takes hold of you again, and you sob. This is glorious, and they're amazing, and you can't get enough, and you try to tell them so, stumbling over your words like you haven’t since you were a wiggler, stammering how much you love them, how deeply you’re _in love_ with them—and then all the furniture starts to creak and bang around and Aradia cries out sharply and you feel her convulse inside you, power flickering brightly all over her skin as she comes.

You whimper, frustrated, as the movements of her bulge gentle, and she squeaks when you clench at its retreating length. It’s not enough. You crack your eyes open to see her bent over you, sweat-damp and hazy-eyed with orgasm, twitching and sparking with aftershocks, but still looking at you like you’re a fight she’s determined to win. Your bulge jerks in Sollux’s grip, and you should let her go but instead you keep clutching at her arms.

She pushes her fingers into your nook alongside her shrinking bulge, which feels weird enough to make you wail, but you’re so close and she hooks the pads of two fingers firmly up against the inner wall behind your sheath and it feels so good you thrash. You’re so close, need’s obliterated all your words.

“AA,” Sollux mutters, “shit, you’re gonna, you’re, fuck, you’re gonna kill him.”

“Not quite,” she says, rubbing at you, faster and harder than a bulge could, almost hurting. The not-quite pain’s unbearable, ricocheting hotly all along your bulge, and it makes you so desperate. You didn’t think anything could make you feel like this.

“Keep going,” she says, over her shoulder, and then that’s it, that sweet smile on her lips when Sollux knocks their horns together and moans is enough for you. You lose it, you break apart. There’s nothing more you could ever want.

When you, grudgingly, come back to yourself, Aradia’s on her elbows and knees alongside you, pressing soft, absent kisses to your shoulder. Sollux is braced over her, sweaty and awkward and rapturous, his jewel-bright eyes distant.

“Come on, Sollux, come on,” she’s murmuring. “Harder, want you to feel good, want you to come for me, sweetie, come on.”

You reach a shaking hand up and comb your fingers through his big sparking mess of horns, and he cries out. Aradia gasps and shivers, her cheek resting heavy against your arm. Everything in the apartment is rattling.

“Oh my god, again,” Sollux pleads.

You brush each horn again, just gently, with your fingertips, enjoying the way he shakes like he’s going to come apart. His psionics are rising out of control, letting off brilliant loops and arcs of tingling light. When you hook your fingers around one of the larger set a thick bright coil twines along your arm, hot enough to sting, and you can feel your muscles spasming. Something electric and strange floods through you, wrapping your lungs, your heart. You squeeze his horn hard and haul his mouth down to your own.

You can feel sparks between his teeth when you kiss him, and his desperate cry crackles with power. You bite his lower lip and feel the ring in your nose heat up, feel every hair on your head bristle.

He comes with an actual, literal bang as the couch flips over. The shockwave sends most of his charts fluttering off the walls, and all of the game grubs curling up tightly with terror. Sollux gasps for breath once, twice, and slumps bonelessly off his moirail and on to you. You grunt when you get his elbow in your stomach, wriggle around until you’ve got one partner on each arm, and survey the utter devastation of Sollux’s block.

“Is this going to, uh, happen every time?” you ask.

“ _I really hope so_ ,” Aradia says fervently, and Sollux gives a weak little giggle. You bask in their warmth and the kind of pan-breaking thought that you have just double-half-filled two quadrants and you are so full of feelings right now.

But you really shouldn't let yourself get too comfortable. "I, um. I hope this doesn't sound, too discourteous, because that is the last thing I would want, at a time like this especially, but I should probably, start home as soon as possible to see to my animals, since, I'm going to have to walk, at least part of the way, after spending a significant portion of my shuttle money on beverages."

"Shit," Sollux says, "I'm sorry. I was worried about how much you were spending on drinks and everything, and then I didn't think it was my business to fuss over you." He laughs weakly, shaking his head. "Didn't realize we were going to wind up like this."

"I bet we could still fix the problem, though," Aradia says, looking past you at Sollux.

"You don't have to, put yourselves to trouble or expense," you say, "since I did this knowingly, and it's my problem to—"

Aradia puts her fingers to your mouth and you stop talking. "I think I might need a little more to eat first," she says.

"Yeah, totally," Sollux agrees. "How about it, TV? We'll get some food and then we'll _fly_ you home."

"Wow," you say. "This is absolutely, without a doubt, the most incredibly great thing that I could possibly have hoped for you two to offer. Are you sure, that, you really don’t mind?"

“We’d love to,” Aradia says, and gives you a big kiss on the cheek.

“Wow,” you repeat, and hide your head for a minute in Sollux’s wild hair.

The three of you peel yourselves up off the floor, wobbly-legged and still grinning at each other over what you've gotten away with. Sollux's hivesuite is a huge mess, and you and Aradia try to straighten up the worst of it while he's picking out a delivery place.

"Not pizza," he says firmly, "I have pizza delivery trauma," and there must be a story there because it makes Aradia laugh. She flips the couch right-way up with her psionics, and you put the towels to use, sponging up as much of your mess from the floor as you can. They’re completely ruined by the time things aren’t pornographically sloppy, and after a minute of sticky indecision you decide to leave them on the bottom of Sollux’s ablution trap, where they can get a first rinse as each of you wash off. You rummage through your discarded pants for your smokes and have the most satisfying cigarette of your life, leaning out a broken window and using your powers to herd game grubs out of the way of Sollux and Aradia sweeping up piles shattered glass and damaged electronics.

It's not a whole lot of space, and your horns are almost always a nuisance, but the process goes surprisingly smoothly. The three of you wind up flopped on the couch, mostly cleaned up, shamelessly naked, sprawling into each other's space while you wait for the delivery drone to arrive. Sollux plugged a video grub into his terrorvision, but it seems to be taking a while to recognize the data. That's okay. You're doing fine.

You rub Sollux's hornbed and Aradia leans on your shoulder and this is just really _nice_. "This has been a pretty amazing couple of nights," you say, picking your way carefully along the thought, "and something I never would have expected, or perhaps a few somethings, to be more precise." Sollux sneaks an arm around your shoulders so he can tangle his fingers in Aradia's hair. "I think, this probably sounds weird to say out loud, but, I never imagined, a pale, or, even, a flushed relationship, like this, where two such, well, _attractive_ , people, like yourselves, would chose partners from analogous castes rather than complementary like I can’t conceive of either of you having any problem doing, and then, we were all, together...uh...”

“Strong independent gutterbloods doing it for ourselves?” Sollux drawls, flashing you an adorable little sneer.

“Yeah,” you say softly. You laugh quietly, and stroke his horns until he smiles. “Yeah, I guess, that’s what we are, isn’t it.”

Aradia kisses you right over your heart. "Life's too short to spend it cozying up to some highblood asshole who thinks you need protecting," she says calmly. "We should take the time we've got and live for ourselves."

You let those words sink in for a minute. They feel _true_ , in this way that vibrates down to your bones, the way none of the highblood-produced media feeds ever have. You fumble for her hand, and she laces her fingers with yours. "I think, there might be a song in that."

Sollux lays his hand over your joined ones. "When you write it," he says, "I'd love to hear it."

_So raise your glass if you are wrong_  
 _In all the right ways, all my underdogs_  
 _We will never be, never be anything but loud_  
 _And nitty gritty, dirty little freaks_


End file.
